Chris Pincher, a British legislator, at a European Union meeting in Brussels in 2020, when he was minister in the Foreign Office. Credit … Thierry Monasse / Getty Images
When a little-known member of the British Parliament got drunk last week at an exclusive club and then staggered into a warm London night, few would have thought he would throw the government into chaos and threaten the leadership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Alcohol and nights are not uncommon in British politics, so Chris Pincher’s actions could have gone unnoticed easily.
But a week later, an expanding scandal has highlighted three key issues facing the Johnson administration: competition, trust, and most importantly, trust.
On Tuesday, the consequences escalated when Rishi Sunak, the chancellor of the Treasury, and Sajid Javid, the health secretary, left the government in letters to Mr. Johnson who only disguised his loss of faith in his leadership.
Mr. Pincher, 52, a member of the Tamworth Parliament in the Midlands, had almost no national profile. But within British politics he had cultivated a reputation as a fierce loyalist to Mr. Johnson and art expert tricked other Conservative lawmakers into voting for government business. For these attributes, Mr. Johnson made him junior minister in 2019, and then, this February, as deputy, in charge of managing the government’s business.
In this last task, his colleagues said, he was unusually efficient, helping to organize an operation under the radar dubbed, at least by some, “Operation Save a Big Dog” that allowed Mr. Johnson survived last month, albeit to a limited extent, a vote of confidence from his colleagues in Parliament.
However, there was a problem. Mr Pincher had previously been in the whip office, but in 2017 he was forced to resign following allegations of making an unwanted pass to a Conservative activist, a former professional rower named Alex Story. A complaint was also filed for misconduct against Mr. Pincher in 2019 when he worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
It was the decision of Mr. Johnson to return him to government the root of the current crisis.
Last Wednesday, Mr. Pincher attended an event for the Conservative Friends of Cyprus at the Carlton Club in one of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods, not far from Buckingham Palace. He is accused of palpating two men while he was there. Witnesses said he was so drunk they had to put him in a taxi.
The next day, contrite, he wrote a letter in the notebook of the House of Commons to Mr. Johnson, offering him his resignation as an assistant. “I drank too much last night,” he said. “I have embarrassed myself and other people, which is the last thing I want to do and for that I apologize to you and those concerned.”
That was not the end. The government insisted for days that Mr. Johnson was unaware of any previous allegations, but then it emerged that he knew of the 2019 lawsuit, but appointed Mr. Pincher attached. Former Foreign Secretary Simon McDonald issued a public letter on Tuesday accusing Downing Street of misrepresenting the facts.
Opposition lawmakers demanded that Mr. Pincher resigned from Parliament. Government ministers, sent to defend the management of the matter by Mr. Johnson in radio and television interviews, seemed uncomfortable.
During all this, Mr. Pincher has remained silent, avoiding the spotlight and denying substantive accusations against him.